‘No regrets’: Venezuela’s Machado defends giving Nobel medal to Trump

Venezuela’s main opposition leader Maria Corina Machado says she has “no regrets” about giving US President Donald Trump her Nobel Peace Prize medal.

Machado, the 2025 recipient of the prestigious prize, presented the medal that accompanies the prize to Trump when she met him at the White House in January, two weeks after he ordered US special forces to seize Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro from Caracas.

Trump’s military operation to remove Maduro, who is currently detained in the US facing drug trafficking charges, is “something we Venezuelans will never forget”, she was quoted by AFP news agency as saying at a conference in Madrid on Saturday.

“There is a leader in the world, a head of state in the world, who risked the lives of his country’s citizens for Venezuela’s freedom,” she said.

Trump, who has long publicly coveted the Nobel Peace Prize, called Machado’s presentation of the medal at the time a “wonderful gesture of mutual respect”.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee, which honoured Machado for her tireless campaign to restore democratic rights in Venezuela and her struggle to achieve a peaceful transition from authoritarian rule, made clear after the handover that the prize is nontransferable and cannot be revoked, shared or transferred to others.

Machado, who had been living in hiding before leaving Venezuela in December to collect her prize in Oslo, said she was coordinating her return to the country with Washington.

US key to ‘democratic transition’

“I am speaking with the US government, and we are working in coordination, with mutual respect and understanding,” she said, adding that she believed Washington was “key to advancing a democratic transition” in Venezuela.

Trump has, however, publicly questioned Machado’s standing, calling her a “very nice woman” but saying she lacks “respect” within Venezuela. He has instead backed Maduro’s former vice president, Delcy Rodriguez, as the country’s interim leader.

Venezuela’s opposition last week called for presidential elections. Machado, who was banned from running in the disputed 2024 vote that returned Maduro to power, has not yet said whether she would stand in a future poll.

While in Spain, Machado declined a meeting with Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, citing his hosting of a progressive leaders’ summit in Barcelona as proof the meeting was “not advisable”. Sanchez had said he was willing to meet her at any time.

This snub comes in contrast to her frequent encounters with Sanchez’s right-wing opponents.